Tag Archives: Stranger Things

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I wish this prompt had happened in January or July! I tend to watch lots of TV when the weather is freezing or unbearably hot. Spring and fall are when I cut back on shows and spend more time socializing with friends and visiting the great outdoors to soak up the mild weather. With that being said, I will follow the prompt and talk about television instead of going off on a tangent about how much I want to go wander off into the woods for an afternoon.

These are my current favourite shows for reasons I’ll explain underneath the photo of each program. If I were going to go out to dinner with any of you, I’d light up if you mentioned being fans of them as well.

The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t on this list because it won’t be out until later on this summer. Mindfulness is important to me, so I’m doing my best to wait until the first episode is out before getting excited about it.

Anne with an E

One of the things that always bothered me a little bit about L.M. Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables series was how much it brushed over Anne’s difficult childhood. She mentioned some pretty serious moments of child abuse and neglect to her new foster parents, and then the plot pretty much skipped over the trauma of those experiences for her. To be fair, these weren’t things that were discussed in too much depth in children’s books back then, and people living in the 1800s also had a much murkier understanding of how adverse childhood experiences could affect someone years later.

The cool thing about season one of this remake is that it hasn’t been afraid to explore how being abused, neglected, and abandoned by multiple caregivers had a serious emotional impact on Anne. I know some fans have criticized it for being too dark, but I think it’s going to be interesting to see how this more realistic approach to her story affects the person she becomes as she grows up.

I still need to watch season two. I’m so behind on shows!

Brooklyn Nine-Nine

I love the fact that this sitcom has a diverse cast but doesn’t fall back on stereotypes in order to make their jokes or explain who their characters are. All of the main characters and even some of the secondary ones are three-dimensional individuals. They feel like real people, warts and all. It’s amazing to see how they’ve grown and changed over the years.

The running jokes are great, too. This isn’t the sort of sitcom I’d recommend watching out of order. There were things that happened in season one that are still being brought up by the characters years later.

Stranger Things

This was the show that taught me that people used to smoke everywhere and let their kids wander all over town without any supervision at all in the 1980s! Yes, I’m mostly joking there, but I was shocked by some of the cultural differences between that era and our own.

On a more serious note, I really like fantasy stories that are set in our world and feel as ordinary as possible. If not for the various supernatural stuff going on in this setting, it could have all really happened to my parents or other relatives who were teens or young adults back then. That’s quite appealing to me.

Black Mirror

I’m brand new to this show. It’s like The Twilight Zone in the sense that each episode is its own self-contained sci-fi or fantasy story. Of the few I’ve seen so far, there doesn’t seem to be crossover between any of them as far as characters or plots go.

I love the creativity of the episodes I have seen. The writers seem to take current trends and extrapolate what they might be like at a distant point in the future or in a version of earth where, say, a parent’s desire to electronically monitor her child is taken to the logical extreme.

I know I’m being vague here, but I really don’t want to give away spoilers. Let’s just say that this is a very thought-provoking program that I’m enjoying so much that I’m even willing to come home from the park early in order to watch it.

The same can be said for the rest of these shows, too. Ha!

Click here to read everyone else’s replies to this week’s question. The image below is the list of upcoming prompts for this blog hop.

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Last year I blogged about the fourteen science fiction and fantasy series I was looking forward to watching during the 2017-2018 season. Wow, that was a lot of shows! Somehow I managed to continue watching almost all of them, though.

Today I’m talking about the shows I’m currently watching or will be watching during the 2018-2019 TV season. Once again, I’ll be sharing the release dates and a short explanation of why I’m interested in each one. This list looks like a long one, but many of these series will be finished long before the ones at the bottom of the list are aired. I love the fact that shows are staggered like that these days.

Also, I am a few seasons behind some of the items on this list. So expect to see them reappear in future updates on what I’m watching unless I suddenly stop watching a lot of current programs for some reason.

Calling all fans of Futurama! The creators of that series have something new for you.

Disenchantment was about a princess who befriended an elf and a demon and proceeded to have all kinds of PG-13 related adventures with them. Yes, this is an animated program. No, it’s not suitable for kids. There’s everything from sex to violence to substance abuse in this tale, so send the small, impressionable humans to bed before you watch it.

So much of the stuff I want to say about this program would give away major spoilers for anyone who hasn’t watched the first two seasons yet. Needless to say, the characters have continued to explore the afterlife and learn just how complicated things can get when the line between heaven and hell becomes so blurry.

I would not recommend watching this to anyone who is easily offended or who has strong opinions about what, if anything, happens to people after they die. While the tone of it is tongue-in-cheek and friendly, this is something that will work better for viewers who are easygoing on this topic.

If history had been a little different, the Axis powers could have won World War II. This series takes a look at what life would be like in the country formerly known as the United States this had happened. Germany and Japan split the U.S. up into sections in this universe, and everyone who wasn’t a Christian Aryan was in terrible danger.

I should warn all of you that this show can get very dark at times. It’s not something that anyone should watch if they’re easily triggered by references to Holocaust-like events.

Black Lightning has been changing my opinion of the superhero genre for the better thanks to everything that was going on in the main character’s life. I adored the complexity of his personality and life. He had to deal with everything from chasing down bad guys to repairing his relationship with his wife in the first season. I’m looking forward to seeing what happens to him and his family next.

I adored season one of this program. While it was originally written to be a lighthearted parody of the Star Trek universe, it felt much more like a Star Trek show than Discovery has so far. This isn’t a diss, either. I’m enjoying Discovery, but it doesn’t have the optimism about the future that I’d expect from this universe.

Luckily, The Orville picked up that slack beautifully in its first season. The characters dealt with some serious issues, but there was always a lighthearted undercurrent to their conflicts that reassured me that better days were coming for everyone in that universe. The world needs more material like this, especially now.

Technically, the last TV season of this show ended this past spring. There is a two-hour movie about the characters in it coming at the end of this year, though, so I’m including it on this list. I’m glad the fans are going to have a proper goodbye for it. The time travel in this story was really well done. I especially liked the fact that the characters who weren’t white men acknowledged how difficult certain eras would be for them to visit due to the prejudices and laws of those times. hoping there will be plenty of that in the sendoff.

Despite my comments above, I actually did enjoy the first season of Discovery. There was a huge plot twist in it that I didn’t see coming ahead of time. I can’t say anything else about that without giving away spoilers, but I am looking forward to seeing where this series goes next and if it begins to feel more friendly and hopeful like other Star Trek tales. (Although I am hoping that the second season will flesh out the secondary characters. So far, only the main characters have gotten attention from the storyline).

This is a reboot of Roswell, a science fiction show about aliens living on Earth in the early 2000s that I liked quite a bit back in the day.

Like the reboot for Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I’d prefer to see this universe revisited in its current form. This doesn’t stop me from feeling excited at revisiting this universe in whatever form it will take.

First this show was cancelled, and now it’s somehow coming back for another season.

All I know is that I have a huge crush on Lucifer. Yes, he’s (sort of) the Lucifer you’d expect someone with that name to be. That is, he is the devil in this universe, but he’s not evil. Children love him, and he only harms people who have already hurt innocent folks. Everyone else is pretty safe around him unless they happened to be horribly annoyed by shameless flirting.

I have four words for you: Harry Potter for adults. While this isn’t set in the Potterverse, the characters in it do attend a school for magic and end up having all sorts of unauthorized adventures when their professors aren’t looking.

It took me a couple of tries to get into the first season, but now I can’t get enough of this series.

Not only are there two superheroes in this story, their powers complement each other perfectly.

I’m also watching this one with the hope that when a romance develops between the main characters, their racial differences won’t be a source of conflict for the plot in any way. One of the beautiful things about living in Toronto is seeing interracial couples living their ordinary lives together without it being a big deal. While I know this definitely isn’t true for every community (or even in every single Torontonian household, to be honest), I think it’s high time for screenwriters to stop assuming that every interracial relationship is fraught with conflicts over race and culture.

That is such an old-fashioned and unhelpful way of perceiving the world, especially if you’re on the outside looking in at someone else’s relationship.

Some of the characters in this show were people who came back to life from the dead without being zombies, vampires, or ghosts. One moment they were corpses, and the next they’d come to life.

I can’t say much else about the premise without giving away massive spoilers, but I’ve loved the character and plot development so far. It’s going to be pretty interesting to see what happens now that more and more townsfolk have realized that some of their new neighbours are actually people who lived there decades and even a few centuries ago.

The first two seasons of this show were filled with stuff that happened in the 1980s but would be frowned upon today. For example, smoking was ubiquitous, and children weren’t supervised well back then.

This isn’t the only reason why I’m looking forward to seeing what happens to the town of Hawkins, Indiana, but it is one of them.

So, it turns out that I might like superhero shows more than I thought I did. When I first began working on this post, I hadn’t fully realized how many different superhero shows I watch.

One of the coolest things about Luke Cage was how close he was to various members of his community. Some of my favourite scenes so far have showed him talking to his neighbours and trying to figure out how to improve all of their lives. The social justice aspect of the storyline is what originally pulled me in and what has kept me coming back for more.

The only episode I’ve seen so far from this series was 4.1, “USS Callister.” It was about a massive multiplayer online game populated by sentient digital clones who were treated very poorly by the man who created them. When the clones realized that the world they’re living in isn’t real, they had to try to decide how or if to escape their circumstances.

I was so impressed by the storytelling and writing quality that I’ve added Black Mirror to my to-watch list. I’m hoping to catch up on as many of the other episodes during the winter of 2018-2019 as possible.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (no photo available yet for this one).

Season 1 of the rebooted premiere: unknown, but I’m hoping it will show up in 2019.

To be honest, I don’t know if Buffy the Vampire Slayer will be rebooted in 2019 or come out at some point after that. Either way, I’ll be curious to see how this universe is reimagined for a new generation.

What science fiction and fantasy shows will you be watching between now and next summer?

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When I originally started working on this post, I was planning to say that I don’t watch very much television. As you’re about to discover from this list, though, I was wrong about that. There are far more SFF shows that I enjoy than I originally thought!

Click on the titles of each shows to read descriptions of their plots. The premiere dates I’ve written down are valid for Canada, and they’re arranged chronologically. I’m also sharing my spoiler-free reasons for anticipating them below the links.

Other than the animated series that I’m still slowly working my way through, I’ve seen every episode of every Star Trek show that’s ever been made. I’m looking forward to watching this homage to this universe, although I’m still not sure what to expect from it yet. The previews for it make it sound like a comedy, but the reviews I’ve read say it’s mostly serious. It will be interesting to see what it’s actually like.

Since I don’t have cable I watch most of my shows a day later using iTunes season passes, so I’ll know more after I’ve had a chance to see the series premiere tonight.

Sentient aliens are real in this universe, and they abduct certain people regularly. Season 1 showed us why this happened, so I’m hoping season 2 will dig more deeply into what the aliens want from the people they capture. This is one of the funniest shows I watch, although it did take an episode or two for me to get to know the main character well enough to find all of the humour in his reactions to the strange things that happen to him.

All of the characters in this show are either dead, robots, or angels. This isn’t your typical version of the afterlife, though, and the hijinks they all got into last season made me laugh so hard that I felt like I couldn’t breathe. Without giving away any spoilers from season 1, the afterlife is a far more complicated place than one might imagine. They explored that beautifully in the beginning, so I can’t wait to see what they do with these characters next.

As with The Orville, I’ve heard a lot of different theories about what Star Trek: Discovery will be like. I’m excited to see how the Stark Trek universe will be revisited regardless of which theory turns out to be true. For the time being, I can’t even begin to guess what I’ll think of it or whether anyone has made correct predictions about its theme.

Lucifer

Season 2 premiere: October 2.

Imagine what it would be like if the Devil developed a crush on a human woman and began helping her solve criminal cases in an attempt to grow closer to her. (No, none of this is a spoiler. It was all revealed in season 1, episode 1 of this series). I absolutely love Lucifer’s witty, charming, and slightly dark personality. There are other sides to him that are completely unexpected as well, although I’ll leave it up to you to discover what they are.

The first season started off a little slow, to be honest with you, but I really came to enjoy the world building. There was a lot of it once the audience got into the second half of the season, and it all fit together incredibly well. Give this one a chance if it doesn’t appeal to you right away. It has a lot of creative spins on the typical fantasy universe.

I couldn’t believe how much the standards for childhood supervision, nutrition, and discipline have evolved since the 1980s. What many people would consider semi-neglectful these days was apparently par for the course for the 1980s (as far as not supervising children goes. There was no graphic child abuse here, only kids being left to their own devices for hours on end every day). The plot itself was also complex and written wonderfully. Season 1 was wrapped up beautifully, but it also left plenty of unanswered questions for season 2.

I’m not generally a fan of the superhero genre, but I really enjoyed the Runaways graphic novels when they first came out years ago. I will be giving this series a try this November. Only time will tell if this story translates well to the small screen for my tastes.

This is a show that I actually convinced my zombie-hating mother to watch! The characters were zombies in the sense that they came back from the dead and no longer exhibited many of the same life signs that normal people do. They weren’t violent or scary in the least, although I’m really hoping that the plot will dig more deeply into what exactly is going on with their physiology in season 2.

The first episode of this show reeled me in immediately. While there were a few times when my attention lagged later on in season 1, I’m still extremely curious to see what happens to the characters next. The main character was someone who spent many years in a coma after an accident when he was a kid, so there is still a lot of stuff he hasn’t figured out yet about adulthood and what happened to him while he was comatose. That’s about all I can say about this one without giving away spoilers, but it was thought-provoking for sure.

If the science fiction and western genres had a love child, they’d name it Westworld. Basically, it’s about a group of highly unusual people who are living in a violent, wild-west-themed amusement park that wealthy folks visit. I hate to be so vague about this show, but many of the plot twists later revealed in it contain major spoilers. This isn’t the sort of thing to watch if you’re triggered by include rape, murder, or assault, but the storytelling is incredible for anyone who doesn’t mind those kinds of themes.

Anyone who has followed this blog for more than a few months knows how much I adore this series. I can’t wait to see what the writers do with universe next, especially since the novel it’s based on left so many unanswered questions for the audience. All of my theories about what will happen next are full of spoilers for later episodes of season 1, so I won’t go into any detail about them here.

Time travel isn’t something I typically seek out in science fiction shows, but this one takes a smart and sensible approach to the topic. I especially loved the fact that the characters who weren’t white men acknowledged the often serious difficulties they faced when the group visited certain times and places. Many eras were downright dangerous for people who were black and/or a woman.

The best way I can think of to describe this series is to say that it’s Harry Potter for grown-ups. Magic is real, and adults who have the natural ability to perform magic are sent to a special boarding school to learn how to control and use their powers. Given that they’re all healthy, young adults, there’s plenty of sex, drugs, alcohol, and dangerous hijinks along the way. I wasn’t a big fan of the first few episodes on my first attempt at watching them, but the plot dramatically improves as you move into season 1. I’m hoping to finish season 2 by the time season 3 airs.

What science fiction and fantasy shows are you looking forward to watching this season?